As farriers, I believe we look at a hoof differently than other horsemen — at least other horsemen who do not shoe horses regularly.

Since the hoof can and does conform to the stress placed upon it, that hoof is constantly adapting. Distortion such as hoof-wall flares and sheared heels are two of the most identifiable examples of this kind of remodeling. When farriers trim a hoof, we try to bring it back into normal form for that individual foot. I say “individual foot” because normal does not mean uniform.

In 1983, Scott Simpson, founder of the farrier training program at Montana State University, identified five basic shapes of coffin bones. These findings were confirmed in 1993 by Texas farrier Danny Taylor, who evaluated many X-rays. This means “normal” can be different from horse to horse and even from limb to limb.

When a shod hoof endures daily stresses from its workload, changes occur. The longer the duration (i.e. shoeing interval), the greater those changes can be. Also noteworthy is the fact that when a shod hoof begins to distort, the rate of distortion increases as the time since the last trim increases — a classic snowball effect. This is why a beautiful shoeing job can look like crap 4 to 5 weeks later.

Horseshoes And Hoof Distortion

The reason to specify “shod hoof” is because a horseshoe stops the natural erosion of the hoof…